Recycling Yarn

During your spring cleaning or your yard sale haunting you’ve found several crocheted or knitted pieces that you simply loved the color or feel of and they’re sitting in your closet staring you in the face every time you open the door!  You’re wondering exactly what you should do with all these pieces and we’re here to help you learn how to recycle all those beautiful pieces of yarn and turn them into new projects.

Unraveling garments

Now the first thing you’re going to need to establish is how to unravel the garment that you have in front of you.  Check out the design of the garment and figure out where it’s best to start. Some sweaters for example it might be best to remove the seams first using a seam picker depending on how they are assembled while a blanket or afghan you’ll want to start from the top/bottom and begin taking the garment apart.

Don’t make the mistake of winding the yarn up in balls when you’re doing this unraveling. It’s wiser to let the yarn fall loosely into a pile next to you as you’re undoing the weave since you’ll have to do some preparation work for it.

A friendly tip: You may want to consider washing the garment or the blanket before you begin unraveling the yarn. This will remove any fabric softener coating, dust and other debris from the item before you begin the unraveling process – they’re much simpler to wash when they’re in one piece!

After Unraveling

Once you have the garment or blanket completely unraveled remove any ‘frayed’ pieces from your ends.  Fill your sink up with warm, clear water (no detergents or softeners) and put the yarn into the water (if you’re using wool or other delicate yarns use cold water).

Carefully make sure that the unraveled yarn is completely wet – mix it into the water with your hands, a wooden spoon or other method ensuring that the yarn is completely wet.  Once the yarn is completely saturated remove the plug from the sink and allow the water to drain out of the sink.  Go ahead and gently squeeze/press the yarn to remove the excess water from it, you don’t want it dripping wet, so make sure that you can carefully pick up the yarn without dripping water everywhere!

Drying your yarn

Clearly you’re not going to want to work with the yarn while it’s wet regardless of how adventurous you might consider yourself!! Hang the yarn to dry – drying in a dryer is strongly discouraged as it could in fact put the kinks that you’ve just worked out right back into the yarn. Instead, let the yarn completely air dry in a hanging position which will help the straightening process.  If you see kinks still in the yarn, tug on the ends of it until they are straight.

Finally

Once the yarn has dried completely you can begin the process of readying it for your next project!  Carefully wind the yarn into balls for your upcoming project!  If you run into damp or wet spots you should make sure that you hang the yarn back up to dry so that you don’t damage it when you’re crocheting your next project!